Hearts Don't Really Break, They Just Give Up After A While
by bowlingstar11
Summary: Hearts don't really break. They can stop, and they can leak. But they can't really break. It just gets tired and gives up after a while.


Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Grey's Anatomy. I just manipulate them to my will. Also, any line or phrase or setting that seems remotely familiar from any other show, movie or book, also not mine. I borrow…

AN: So this is my own version of what happens post 9x01. Enjoy!

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How long can someone go without breathing? It's been proven that the body can last up to three minutes without oxygen. After that the body starts to shut down on itself until finally… you just stop existing. But how long can someone last when it feels like they are constantly suffocating, or drowning, or trying to claw their way out of a sink hole. Is there a limit to the amount of heartache one person can hold? Or does it never stop, never lets up until something within you snaps and you finally succumb to the darkness.

Callie Torres isn't sure, but she knows she is testing the limits. Three months and still her wife can't even look at her. It's been three months since Callie broke her promise to Arizona, and it's been three months since Callie has taken a breath.

But now, she needs to breathe. She can't do this any longer. Lexie died, Derek still can't operate, Cristina is gone, Meredith is the Nazi Incarnate at work. And Mark died. He just died, slipped away as Callie sat there and watched, unable to do anything to save him. And now Callie is afraid that her wife, the woman she loves more than anything, besides her daughter, is about to fall down that same sink hole to where Callie can never save her.

So with a deep, steadying breath, Callie pushes their bedroom door open and finds the same unmoving mass that has been present in their bed since the day she brought Arizona home. Her head is turned away from the door and all the Latina can see is a messy bun of blonde hair, pulled up and away because Arizona barely even tries to take care of herself anymore.

With another breath, Callie says "Arizona?" But she gets nothing in response, not even a muscle twitch to show that Arizona acknowledges her presence. "Arizona." She tries again, but still nothing.

"I can't keep doing this alone, Arizona. I just can't." The tired woman says, hoping and praying that something inside her wife will wake up. "Please… Arizona, please talk to me." She pleads, tears collecting in the corner of rich brown eyes.

But the blonde doesn't move, doesn't even flinch. Just as she hasn't in the last three months. There were tears and screaming the first few days Callie brought her home but after a few days Arizona just… disappeared. She collapsed in on herself and now the once perky and upbeat peds surgeon is like a black hole. No light or sound escaping it, and it swallows up everything that comes near it. Life, love, ….joy. It's swallows it up and kills it.

Callie's head dips in disappointment and she starts to back out of their bedroom, but at the threshold she stops. She's been understanding and caring for three months, she's been letting Arizona have her space. Giving her wife time to mourn, to process, to handle all this the way she wants, but its obvious it hasn't worked.

She steps back into the room and shuts the door, trying to distance themselves from their daughter sleeping in the other room, and rounds the bed. When Arizona hears her wife moving towards her, the blonde shifts and turns to her other side, always keeping her back to the woman she loves most… and the woman who allowed her doctors to cut off her leg.

"Arizona, I've given you time. I've given you space. But I'm done babying you." Callie states from where she is standing at her wife's side of the bed. "You need to get up. You need to take care of yourself. You need to live! Snap out of it!"

"Snap out of it?!" Arizona hisses, turning to look up at her wife. "Snap out of it?!" With a quick yank, Arizona rips the covers off her lap to reveal her leg. …Or what's left of it.

Callie cringes at the sight and looks away, trying to bite back the sobbing that is threatening to happen.

"You can't even fucking look at it!" Arizona exclaims. "You did this to me, and now I'm supposed to 'snap out of it'. How the hell am I suppose to snap out of this when you cut off my leg?!"

"Because you're alive!" Callie shouts back before she can stop herself. The blonde is taken back, not prepared for her wife to yell at her, so Callie takes advantage of it.

Kneeling at the edge of the bed so Arizona looking down on her, Callie continues "You're alive, Arizona. You lived. Lexie died and Mark died… but you didn't. Do you know how scared I was when Owen told me your plane went down? Do you know how hard I prayed for you to make it? I was so scared, Arizona. I was so scared I'd lose you and… and then we got word that two of you died out there." Brown eyes are wet with tears but Callie doesn't move to brush them away. "Oh god, I was so scared. I prayed so hard, I prayed that He save you and take me instead. And then… they found you. You were pale and coughing up blood and you-"

"I know what happened." Arizona snaps, cutting her wife off midsentence. "I was there, Callie. I remember every fucking detail of it like it was yesterday. And I remember you _promising _me that you wouldn't let them cut off my leg."

"You're right, I did promise." Callie replies. "And I'm sorry that I broke that promise, but I'm not sorry that you lost your leg." Blue eyes harden and Torres can see her wife's jaw clenching in anger.

"Because it was either that, or me losing you for good." Callie says in a serious tone. "And that's something that I can't do, Arizona. So I get it. I. Get. It. You're angry, and hurt, and scared. I am too." A tanned hand reaches up to cup a fair cheek, her wife flinching at the intimate contact. "But you're here. And we'll make it. You just need to live for me, ok? Can you do that? …Can you live for me?"

Those words bring back memories of Arizona's vigil at her girlfriend's bedside after their terrible accident, the blonde's words replaying in her mind and bringing forth a flood of tears. What did she do to deserve this? She saves children, she heals them and makes them smile and brings them pudding. What has she done to the universe that warranted God bringing her plane down? Why did she have to plead with Mark for him to live, why didn't it work? But most importantly, how will she ever get past this?

After months and months of putting up walls and holding off her pain with contempt and anger, those barricades break and the emotions spill over. Tears come raining from blue eyes and Arizona curls in on herself, her body racking with sobs. Callie stands, the sight before her breaking what little of her heart was still intact into a million pieces. Without a word, she manages to climb into bed and take her wife in her arms.

Arizona immediately clings to her, needing an anchor to this world, and let's her tears fall unabashed. She's pushed Callie out for so long, but now it feels like the only thing that seems real right now is the woman she clutching. Like if she buries herself deeply enough in her wife's embrace that this will all turn out to be a dream. A terrible dream that she will awake from with a cold sweat to find these same strong arms wrapped protectively around her.

But that moment never comes, that bolt of consciousness that makes one spring up out of their deep sleep and rejoin reality.

Callie just holds her wife tight, pulling Arizona in closer against her at the same time feeling that they are too far apart. Even thought the only thing separating them is a few layers of clothes, it's too much. But she'll take what she can get, and right now that is just holding Arizona while the blonde lets out all her pent up tears.

"Tell me we'll make it." Arizona gasps between sobs.

Callie doesn't make out what her wife said, the blonde's face being buried in her chest, and pulls away from the woman to look down at a tear streaked face. "What?"

"T-Tell me we-we-we'll make i-it." She says again. "C-cause that's the o-only th-thing I got left."

"We'll make it." Callie replies in a whisper, but she can see doubt in those blue eyes.

Her left hands leaves its grip from Arizona's back and trails down her wife's body, hesitating only a second before Callie lays her hand on the naked, mangled flesh of Arizona's left leg. The blonde flinches and tries to brush Callie's touch away, but Torres holds strong.

Once blue eyes meet brown again, Callie says again "We'll make it. We. Will. Make. It. Because I love you and you love me… and none of the rest of it matters."


End file.
